


A little troublesome, a little terrible

by spacecath



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: And everybody still thinks she killed Snoke, Angst, Canon Compliant, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, I'm Bad At Tagging, Kylo is still resentful, Rey is pragmatic, Rey never told anybody anything about Kylo, Romance, Sex, and braver than ever, and lovesick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-10
Updated: 2018-12-12
Packaged: 2019-07-29 06:09:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16258274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacecath/pseuds/spacecath
Summary: Everything was quiet between Kylo Ren and Rey after Crait for about six months or so.Until Poe got tractor-beamed during the attack on one of the First Order Dreadnoughts and was to be put on trial.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm supposed to work on some original projects, but I miss writing fanfiction. I miss our two idiots, so  
> this is what having poor impulse control is like, but we've all been there, I guess :)
> 
> I've been toying with this idea for a while, writing random scenes as they came to my head, and even though I sort of promised myself I wouldn't be posting anything until I'm done writing, today of all days, on a random Wednesday, I felt like sharing :-). 
> 
> It won't be a long fic, 4-5 chapters or so.
> 
>  
> 
> I owe the title to Robinson Jeffers's poem Meditation on Saviors.
> 
>  
> 
> Also equipoise seems to be a recurring motif for me for not only it's the title of my previous fanfic, it sneaked into this chapter, too :-)
> 
> So, thanks for reading and if you like it, please, let me know. I could use some motivation to finish it :-) 
> 
> If it's not your thing, I would still appreciate your opinion. 
> 
> One last thing: this fic is unbetaed and unedited, so all the mistakes are exclusively mine.

  
“We could always pretend you perished in the attack,” General Hux says, his arms crossed over his chest, his nose wrinkled in distaste.

  
Poe stands straight in front of him, surrounded by the First Order officers, craning his neck to look into the tall General’s eyes, his handcuffed wrist itching. Tugging at them is useless, but he gives in to his instinct to do something, anything else, but stand still and wait for this pasty looking vermin to make him an example of what happens to the rebels.

  
“We could also pretend we never captured you,” General Hux’ voice chimes through the dark chamber.

  
Poe gives him his signature crooked smile — bravery tainted with despair, well-hidden under the derision.

  
“Wouldn’t expect anything less from you, General Hugs.”

  
A slap echoes through the chamber and Poe’s neck almost cracks from the force of it.

He slowly turns his head, the defiance in his eyes even sharper, and works his jaw, his eyes never leaving Hux’s.

Hux’s face is red, his hair falling over his forehead.

  
“No,” comes a rich, dark voice from the shadows of the huge antechamber.

  
Poe is not aware of its size for it’s scarcely lit to begin with, and they keep him in the pull of light, surrounded by indiscernible figures in black uniforms.

The unmistakable aura of their new Supreme Leader precedes the tall figure, as he glides out of the shadow.

  
Poe knows who this is, even though he wore a mask during their last encounter, and despite the fact things are a bit blurry in Poe’s memory, but he does remember the Force presence in his mind compelling him to reveal every tiny, insignificant thought he’s ever had.

  
The memory of that makes him shudder.

 _That_. Not Hux’s threats.

  
“We are the First Order, not a bunch of lawless thugs,” says the new Supreme Leader, coming closer to Poe and leaning down to look at him.

  
Poe is determined not to stare, but his eyes dart to this long, strained face directly in his line of vision.

He’s heard about the scar on his face from the person responsible for giving it to him and he almost smiles, so proud of knowing Rey - so brave, unstoppable, like a force of nature.

  
_She showed you right, didn’t she?_ he thinks.

  
“Mind your thoughts,” Kylo Ren’s voice is a warning in his head.

  
Poe looks straight ahead, deciding not to provoke unnecessary bouts of wrath, but an impertinent smile lingers on his lips. Rey never told anyone what happened prior to Crait, but he saw her clutching that broken lightsaber with deep melancholy in her hazel eyes.

 _That’s how you grow up, kid_ , Poe thought, his admiration and affection for the girl deepening.

He was hoping that one day, when all this was over, they might be more than friends, but that desirous future might never be. It's not very likely he'll make it out of this mess alive. He got out the last time thanks to Finn, the defector stormtrooper, but it’s delusional to expect that kind of luck again. Finn is eons away, and so is Rey — ferocious, resourceful Rey, who could have had an ace up her sleeve, being in command of the Force Poe really knows almost nothing about. For him it’s some kind of mystical, ethereal knowledge some claim to posses, so remote from his grasp and experience.

So, no, he doesn't believe in miraculous escapes and fairy-tale endings, not for himself, even though he knows Rey pulled it off, for the Galaxy still resonates with the consequences of her actions.But Rey is one of a kind and her master stroke is unparalleled.

  
Poe has no regrets, just a tiny grain of sorrow for things he yet didn’t do. Such as kiss that girl and make her smile.

  
The dark lord in front of him scrutinizes his face, frowning as if he could feel all that turmoil inside his head.

“Take him away,” he instructs the guards. “He will be put on trial and we’ll broadcast it over the Holonet to show that we are basing our Empire on law and order.”

   
*

   
_I’ll show her how it could’ve been_ , Kylo Ren thinks, watching Poe being dragged away.

  
He doesn’t know if this really is a good idea - but he follows an impulse provoked by a sudden epiphany that this is what he has to do to show Rey he _is_ everything she thinks he’s not - a just leader who is treating his subjects equally, but who is determined to punish insubordination and terrorism. To show her that she is the one on the side of the lawless.

Once he’s alone in his compartment - a modest chamber furnished only by basic necessities, for he never bothered to move into Snoke’s quarters, — direct Holonet transmission sounds like an exaggerated feat even in his own ears. He can't even begin to list what could go wrong. But it’s an impersonal, detached way to prove she was wrong about him.

And Kylo Ren would do anything to prove Rey wrong.

   
*

Kylo Ren wakes up with a start, the familiar Force presence tugging at his awareness. For a brief moment he’s tempted to let it happen, to finally let her in, for the first time since Crait, but then he closes his eyes again and counts to ten, giving his overworked brain time to recollect itself. He didn’t give in, not once in all this time, not when he most wanted her, when he pined for her so much he thought he would die - and all the while she was there, within the Force, within his reach. It was a torture and he endured it all, until she gave up and her attempts to reach him subsided. She would still reach for him once in a while, probe his defenses for fun maybe, and he would resist every single time. Why did she ever think he would let her in after she’d left him like that, back on Supremacy, alone, forlorn, robbed of his legacy saber?

  
Robbed of his heart.

  
Kylo is proud of his survival techniques. If he just holds on a little longer every time he thinks he's about to give in, every time he thinks he can’t take it anymore, he’ll make it. He’ll get out on the other side of the tunnel even if it’s equally pitch dark out there. It’s the good, serene, familiar darkness, the darkness that keeps him calm. He doesn't need her, not anymore. He doesn't need this disturbance, this deviation in the pattern, not when they both finally accepted they'd never be on the same side. He's sure she'd agree with him. That's why he feels betrayed when he once again feels her reaching for him.

 It's a precarious _equipoise_ they're living in and he's determined to hold it.

  
He closes his eyes more insistently and continues to count in his head. He’s already close to hundred and she still persists. _Go away,_ _Rey,_ he thinks.

She’s not there for him, she’s there for the pilot and that makes all the difference in the world. His palms are sweaty and his breathing speeds up, but his steely will silences his heart and he knows he won’t let her in even if it kills him.

   
*

  
“I’ll go to him”, Rey proclaims, gathering her few belongings into a canvas bag, making sure she has extra set of clothes, for even though she doesn’t know exactly what to expect, she knows it might be a prolonged affair.

  
“Not again,” Finn groans. “We’ve been there, you’ve done that already, It didn’t work out. He’s beyond reach.”

  
“He won’t hurt me,” she says.”I think.”

  
Her words come out in a more uncertain voice than she intended.

That gets Finn’s attention.

  
“You think?!!”

  
“I’m not sure I know him anymore, “ Rey admits, shoving the Jedi books and the broken lightsaber into her bag, for that’s all she has left.

 _Just in case_ , she thinks.

  
“And you’re going to do what? Deliver yourself, a wanted fugitive, the girl who killed the Supreme Leader, to the First Order, in hope they would release Poe? They will kill you both!”

She frowns, considering his words.

  
“No, they won’t. Kylo won’t. It’s not that he’s noble, above petty revenge. It’s just that he can’t - he couldn’t before, and he won’t do it now. He’ll negotiate.”

 _Ben won't,_ her heart chimes and that name sticks in her throat, for she's not sure there's anything left of him in Kylo, not after Crait.

Finn’s exasperated face fills her line of vision.

  
“You have nothing to negotiate with! Literally nothing! They won, we lost and we’ll be forced to resort to the desperate, partisan ways of fighting for decades and pray for a miracle.”

  
Rey sets her jaw.

  
“The Force had other plans for us before, and somehow I believe those plans are still on.”

  
Finn snorts and she stops in front of him to look into his eyes.

  
“He won’t talk to me,” she says, something akin to despair ringing in her voice.

  
“What do you mean? Did you…what — comlinked him and he dissed you?”

  
“No, it’s more in my head…you wouldn’t understand.”

  
She takes both his hands in hers and looks at him earnestly.

  
“Finn, he won’t talk to me. And now that he has Poe, I can’t not try.“

   
*

  
_I still can’t stand the sight of him,_ Kylo thinks, looking at the cocky pilot.

Sweat adorns Poe’s upper lip, but otherwise he seems his old, unaffected self. Kylo investigates him about the Resistance whereabouts, probing his mind here and there, but refraining himself from using the full Force on him. The truth is Kylo is not entirely prepared to deal with the information he wants to extract. What if Poe cracks and reveals the Resistance’s whereabouts? He should send TIE fighters to destroy them all once and for all.

 _Her_ too.

Especially _her._

He said it out loud. He sort of committed himself to doing it once the words were out of his mouth.

  
He hovers over Poe’s head, not doing anything to him until Hux creeps up on him and offers to take over and try some more efficient interrogation techniques.

“Supreme Leader, we should ask him about the girl.”

  
“The girl?” Poe says. “You mean Rey?”

  
Kylo winces on hearing her name, and his hand twitches.

The cocky pilot deserves death just for uttering her name with such intimacy.

_What is she to you now, when she's no longer mine?_

There's no part of his brain alert enough to warn him Rey was never his, for he wants this man dead just for being able to see her every day for the past six months.

  
And yet, he stops himself mid-movement and probes his mind, searching for anything that might give him a clue about how much Rey shared with her comrades in the Resistance.

There are no revealing thoughts about him there, no words they exchanged, retold, re-interpreted in the pilot's head - not even a hazy, second-hand recollection of that one time they fought for each other, that time when both of them, he's sure of that,  thought everything might be, everything's yet to come.

 _She told him nothing_ , Kylo thinks and the thought is oddly appeasing. _Nothing about me, nothing about Snoke._

As if sharing that dirty little secret would bring him closer to Rey.

Rey whom he's trying even to avoid thinking of.

  
“She killed Supreme Leader Snoke,” Hux says indignantly.

  
“And the whole Praetorian Guard,” he adds looking shrewdly at Kylo.

  
Poe blinks, pride and disbelief chasing each other across his face.

For a brief moment, Kylo feels as if he’s on trial.

 

*

   
He can feel her approaching, for the Force pulsates with her presence, her signature in it potently throbbing, and his own treacherous heart leaps to his throat.

He’s smiling, he’s raking his hands through his hair and for a brief moment, the frigid air of the deep spaceship smells like hope.

And then he remembers why she’s coming - because he captured Poe Dameron, because he won’t talk to her, because she’s willing to negotiate with him.

Because he is her enemy.

It's not like the last time, when the stars were still trying to align themselves to make the two of them happen. They chose their paths and his led him to this utter loneliness and gloom.

And he would still choose the same.

  
Another defensive layer around his heart is a priority, however shaky and ratty, and he has to work on it before she lands.

  
He informs Hux and gives orders that nobody hurts the Resistance emissary. He doesn’t reveal the identity of that person, deeming it to be a safer option. He’ll be there to make sure nobody touches her.

Nobody but him.

 

*

   
He’s at the docking bay alone this time practicing his stone expression, slightly annoyed, slightly condescending.

And then the Millennium Falcon docks, with sound and fury and promise, and he feels he's losing it once again.

When the door opens with a hissing sound and smoke disperses enough for him to discern her face,  Rey is already staring directly at him.

He feels her first impulse —to run far away from there and hide in the most remote corner of the Galaxy. He knows how much bravery her first step down the ramp takes.

  
“Kylo,” she says, her voice parched and ragged.

It sounds foreign, his name sounds unused, but then again, she always preferred Ben.

  
He can’t give her Ben. He thought about it.

So it has to be Kylo.

  
“Rey,” he hears himself saying.

She’s clutching her bag, looking at him with those reproachful eyes, swaying a little on her feet. She’s thinner, more tired, and that tugs at his heart.

  
He knows the weight of her body, the warm lightness of her bones, the calousness of her fingers. He knows how it feels to carry her in his arms, to feel her lean on his back, and as touch deprived as he is, his gloved hand twitches towards her as she stands so alone, so small in the sterile hangar of the Finalizer, wearing the same unmerciful face as when she closed the door on him.

  
“Take me to him.”

  
She steps down to face him and he motions her towards the turbolift.

  
“You used to call me Ben,” he says, almost choking on his words.

  
He wants to punch himself, he wants to disappear on the spot, or go back in time just those ten seconds, enough to stop himself from saying anything. The Force between them flutters for a moment and the silence rings with unspoken words.

  
“That ship has sailed, Kylo. And shipwrecked. Unsalvageable,” she says, stepping into the lift and turning her hard face to him.

  
“Nothing is unsalvageable for a scavenger.”

  
He fights a stupid smile twisting his lips, but doesn't fight a bout of hope filling his heart.

  
She’s here.

She’s hostile and unrelenting, but she’s here -  he can talk to her, he can even touch her, maybe in passing, for she keeps her distance and holding hands seems to be out of the question.

  
“This is not about us,” she says too quickly to sound unaffected.

  
“We’ll see,” he steps out of the turbolift ahead of her, so as to hide his ineluctable smile.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kylo thinks the weight of the Finalizer is shifted by her presence, as if everything on it, including him, is tilted and out of balance. He feels so aware and very much awake.
> 
> So he gets up and trains.
> 
> His knights are wary of him when he’s like this.
> 
> Not yet near explosion, channeling his energy into precise, vicious slays.
> 
> There’s a highway between his heart and his saberhand and everything that’s been bottled up runs there unobstructed.
> 
> He wishes he could pray.
> 
> To whom and how, he doesn’t know. But there are no deities in his world, only the Force.
> 
> And the Force doesn't seem to be with him today.

“How exactly did you plan this trial to go?” Rey asks, stepping out of the turbolift, following Kylo’s dark figure into the dim corridor ahead of them.

Red motion-activated lights precede them and turn themselves off behind their backs almost immediately, provoking an uneasy feeling of being inside the belly of the beast. This is as low as the turbolifts go and the only way is horizontal.

  
He glances at her serious, expectant face.

How did he plan this?

 _He didn’t_.

He uttered those words because they sounded like something Rey would want to hear. Something that would sway her in her contempt and abhorrence for him, just because he’s giving the idea a chance. Something that might make her like him again, make her look at him like she did once upon a time, when she saw a promise in him and told him he was not alone.

In this acute moment of sobriety Kylo knows that organizing a show trial can’t be the way to gain her approval.

For that’s what this will come down to.

Even Rey with all her freshness and naiveté must know Poe is not coming out of this a free man.

So she’ll be furious with him, she’ll feel deceived, she’ll leave again, even more hardened, with a heart that would stay closed to him for ever. And he’ll be once again left alone in the dark. Kylo is painfully aware his plan - his hastened, ill-advised plan - is about to backfire horribly.

Meanwhile Rey asks questions that sound blurry to him, but he discerns particular words he’d rather not think about, words like _jury, defender, judge, prosecutor_ , and he knows what she wants from him.

To tell her how to fight the system; to show her a way out.

“Kylo?” she utters his pretend name as if she’s choking on it, but he keeps doggedly trudging through the reddish darkness, silently ignoring her, as he defies the urge to speed up his steps even more, to run away from her, from her words, and her demands to know how and why and when.

He considers saying _I’m not answering any of your questions,_ but his mind shapes it more like _Would you consider staying if I made sure the trial is fair and just?_ and in the end he says nothing.

Only starts taking longer strides, as if trying to remove himself from her confusing presence, forcing her to make two steps for each one of his. Rey almost has to break into a light jog.

His revenge is petty, trivial, but it’s a revenge nevertheless.

He glances at her sideways, his lips pressed thin, his posture defensive.

  
Rey stops abruptly as if something’s dawned on her.

“You didn’t think this through, did you?”

He stops, too, but doesn’t turn to her so she hurries up to him.

She slowly comes around him to face him, her posture incredulous, her face lightly frowning.

“You guaranteed him a fair, public trial and now you don’t know if you’ll be able to live up to that promise,” she says, revelation settling in on her. “What were you thinking? You’d improvise your way through a public trial? That’s the most Solo thing ever!”

Kylo huffs, slightly hunched down to look into her eyes, his arms crossed over his chest.

“Why are you really here, Rey?”

“To make sure you treat Poe right,” she answers without hesitation.

“And how are you going to do that? What’s _your_ plan?”

With Rey soundlessly opening her mouth and closing it again, for the first time since her arrival Kylo feels he has the upper hand in anything.

“So, to quote you, you haven’t thought this through, either. That is, how you choose to put it, very Solo of you,” he says with a smirk.

  
For a moment he’s sure he’s made her blush by implying that she somehow lives up to his former, detested last name, and his heart swells anew with hope, against his will, against his better judgement. But that moment doesn’t last and he reminds himself that her ruby cheeks could simply be the result of the reflection of the corridor lights.

_She’s not here because of you._

“So what do you intend to do to secure the fair treatment of your favorite pilot?” Kylo’s voice is low and harsh.

For a brief moment Rey looks as if she’s at a loss of words, but then she steps up to him, her index-finger jabbing into his chest, looking like a furious angel of justice.

  
“I intend to hold you to your word!” she says, heading down the corridor, leaving him in darkness.

  
   
*

  
She breaks ahead of him into an oval space, surrounded by panels and plexiglass windowpanes.

Only one of them is softly lit and on the other side of it Poe’s frowning at Rey. He’s shaking his head in disbelief, his hands pressed up against the plexiglass, trying to look around Hux and the armed stormtroopers, scattered around the expanse, partially blocking his view.

On seeing Rey, Hux’s eyes nearly pop out of his head.

“You??? Back to the scene of the crime? To murder another Supreme Leader?” he shrieks.

Rey’s eyes are on Kylo a fraction of a second too long.

 _We did it, we did everything together_ , Kylo thinks.

“I come in peace,” Rey says, sounding a tad too belligerent to be truthful. “You know, the state where you don’t immediately attack the person in front of you. But being in the First Order you must find it difficult to understand the concept.”

“We have no time for empty rhetoric. Seize her!” Hux says to the stormtroopers.

  
_We_ , Kylo thinks. _Am I really part of that we, along with this man? Have I ever truly been on the same side with him?_

  
“No,” Kylo says, stopping the stormtroopers with a flick of his hand.

Poe mutters something under his breath, his eyes not leaving Rey. She makes a tiny step towards him, but then freezes underneath Hux’s furious gaze.

“Supreme Leader,” Hux whines, his face pinched. “She is a fugitive. For all we know the Resistance is using this as a chance to infiltrate and strike again. I would hate to see her make an attempt on your life and I will do everything in my power to protect you.”

“I don’t need your protection,” Kylo growls at him.

Rey makes another step towards the glass barrier separating her from Poe.

“You don’t? She walks around as if she owns the place! Have you searched her? What’s in the bag?”

The next moment the bag is rudely snatched out of her hands and Hux turns it inside out.

The Jedi books fall on the floor with a thud and the two halves of the saber clatter over it until they end up in front of Kylo’s feet. He follows them with his eyes and then he looks up at Rey.

It’s the unbearable sadness in her eyes, not the fury underneath it, that startles him.

  
_This is your order, Kylo. This is what it comes down to,_ he reads in her gaze.

  
“What kind of garbage is this?” Hux asks, toeing the saber with apparent distaste. “Have you been scavenging again?”

  
It takes Kylo every ounce of strength he has not to kill him on the spot. His vision is tinted red, the Force in him burning.

Rey glances at his clenched fists and takes a few steps towards him — tiny steps that bring her between him and Hux.

His eyes don't leave hers as he summons the books and the remains of the saber using the Force, and hands them to her.

Her hands are trembling, as she shoves them again into the bag, casting murderous glances in Hux’s direction.

On the other side of the plexiglass Poe is not entirely sure what he’s witnessing, but he can feel the magnitude of it. It’s something he still can't define; something he knows doesn't fit this story.

  
   
*

  
Poe wants to be angry with Rey for coming to the Finalizer, for putting her own life in danger, for risking so much for a lost cause, but he can’t. She came to see him, he must mean something to her.

“I’ll get you out of here,” she says to him, when she finally leans on the glass, searching for his eyes.

He wants to believe, but what he’s seen on the other side of the glass is marring that impression. She's as effervescent as ever, but there's a shade in her voice revealing her doubt.

“You shouldn’t have come,” he says, shaking his head.

“Let him out so that we can talk,” she says to the space between Kylo and Hux.

“No,” Hux retorts. “I’m afraid that won’t be possible.”

“Every prison has visiting hours,” Rey tries again.

Kylo is torn between simply giving her everything she asks for, and claiming her for himself.

In the end, his need prevails.

“You’ll get some time alone tomorrow,” he says overbearingly. "We're done for today."

  
Rey sets her jaw and turns to go, fire in her Force signature spiking up and then she stops.

“Am I under arrest?” she asks in a weary voice, casting a cautious gaze at Hux over her shoulder, avoiding looking at Kylo.

_There is no way for distrust not to hurt. And he can’t even utter “I would never…”_

Why does her presence make him doubt his principles, his truths, the foundations of his beliefs, so easily?

“Of course—“ Hux starts, but Kylo cuts him off.

“No. You’re free to go."

  
_And I wish you would._

  
She stomps towards the turbolift, and after a few hesitating seconds he follows her.

He’s suddenly afraid she’ll do exactly that, disappear again, leave him in his own misery before he’s said words he wants her to hear, words he needs to say.

It’s confusing, almost humiliating, to trail after her on his own ship for he won’t hold her against her will, and he won’t ask her if she’s leaving, either.

So he follows her.

  
“Where are you going?” he dares to ask.

“Back to my ship,” she retorts.

 _My father’s ship, my ship_ , he wants to say, but stops himself and just works his jaw until the muscles in it spasm.

It’s a slap in his face that that piece of junk is in the hangar of the Finalizer.

  
“It’s not safe for you to stay there. You pissed Hux off.”

“It’s not safe for me anywhere near you and here I am,” she retorts.

“You’ll be safer near me. You can stay in a guest compartment. I’ll have my knights guard you.”

She scoffs.

“As your guest? Where have I heard that before? Your version of hospitality is putting people in shackles.”

She moves fast, out of the turbolift, towards the hangar and he’s the one who has to struggle to keep up with her now.

“Rey! Wait!” he says, reaching for her arm, but changing his mind just before he touches her. “Wait, please? We need to talk.”

She crosses her arms over her chest, looks up and down the empty corridor and then pointedly at him.

“Talk.”

“Not here," he says quietly and rakes his hand through his hair. "Would you have … dinner with me?”

She gapes at him.

“We’re in the middle of the war, you’ve imprisoned Poe and you’re putting him on trial, and you expect me to sit and have dinner with you!”

 _You’re the source of all evil_ , he hears.

“It’s just…,” he starts quietly and makes a gesture to encompass her from top to toe. “Well, you should eat more.”

  
Rey’s fury rolls off of her in crimson waves. Kylo can almost watch them encircle him.

“What I eat and when is none of your concern!” she retorts. “You should sleep more, but you don’t see me suggesting you to go to bed.”

They both wince at the same time and even though Kylo is by now sure she’s blushing, he averts his eyes to give her time to compose herself.

He wears those black circles underneath his eyes with pride. He’s the Supreme Leader of this very disorganized galaxy.

Sleep is a luxury.

But she’s unreasonable, and she’s unyielding. Softness has never been the way to her heart.

  
“You’re right,” he says in a harsh voice. “We have no time for civilities. I’ll make you a deal: your appearance at the trial will give us credibility and help us subdue the rebellious elements in the Galaxy. In return I promise you a fair trial.”

“Fine. I want him out of that dungeon cell and up on the main level. You can put him in that guest compartment you’ve just offered me. He’s innocent until proven guilty.”

“He’s been caught red-handed in the middle of an attack that qualifies as terrorism. He’ll be charged and trialed according to our laws.”

“How can I trust anything you say!”

Rey takes a step towards him and fixes him with her eyes.

“I have never ever lied to you!” he yells, looming over her, his hands suddenly alive, swishing through the air between them. “Even when it was easier to omit the truth. It would’ve been a lie anyway.”

Her jaw is set and she’s not backing off.

“I watched you murder your father, Kylo. And yet I believed you could be saved.”

“Your and my idea of my own salvation are very different.”

She frowns at his words, but then scoffs in derision.

But Kylo is on the rampage for if he doesn’t say it all now, he’s afraid he’ll never will.

“I killed Snoke for you!” he yells.

His words are cold, his eyes unwavering.

It’s the naked truth for Kylo has nothing to lose, not anymore.

“Keep telling that to yourself and you might even believe it in the end. You killed Snoke because of your thirst for power. And you spared me because you needed a partner in crime.”

She comes up to him and cranes her neck to look into his unswerving eyes.

“I needed a partner to establish order and make this galaxy a liveable place for everyone. And you turned to be the wrong choice! You did what you do best, Rey. You fled!”

“Your version of our partnership, or whatever you imagined in that twisted mind of yours, involved leaving my friends to die ! How could you even think I would say yes to anything you proposed?”

“Because you wouldn’t have come to me in the first place if you hadn’t felt something,” he says in a clear voice.

There's a tiny moment when he thinks she'll crack and open up to him again.

  
“I felt I could turn you over. It was worth risking my life,” Rey retorts instead.

But her fury no longer resonates in his.

This is the eye of the hurricane for him. This is where everything is still and where it hurts the most and Kylo is standing in it naked and very much alone.

“You made me think you cared about me. While you only wanted me to be an asset for the Resistance. You were lying from the beginning. Why didn’t you kill me? It would’ve been so easy. You wanted to, didn’t you?”

“No”, she says fiercely. “But I considered dragging your ass with me to the Resistance if you only weren’t —“, she gestures toward him, “…built like a mountain.”

“You could’ve used the Force,” he says, but his lips quirk up into an almost imperceptible smile.

  
Rey’s face is red and she opens her mouth to say something and then changes her mind.

His eyes are on those lips, and he makes a tiny, subtle movement with his head, a change of the angle as if to see them better, now, when she’s so close he can almost feel her pulse in his veins. She seems lost for a moment, her hazel eyes large and glassy, her lips slightly parted as if their long overdue kiss is finally inevitable and yet -  there’s still so much space between them not even light can bridge and they're still stuck on their respective sides of the truth.

  
“They would’ve imprisoned you. Maybe even killed you,” she says in the end in a broken voice. “I couldn’t allow it.”

This is not what he needs to hear. Or maybe it is, but it’s a small, insignificant portion of it. He knows she didn’t want him dead for he would’ve been dead already.

_But did she want him? Does she still? Did she spare him only because she pitied him?_

  
Pain is the greatest teacher in the world for its lessons are singular.

And Kylo has learned his lesson.

  
“So, none of it was real,” he says, his voice acrid, his eyes resentful.

She turns to him so suddenly she doesn't really see her - just a swirl of the air, a vortex of energy. She's small and ferocious, and she's the most magnificent force in his universe.

  
“All of it was real.”

  
Her small, fast-paced steps echo in the spacious hangar as he stands there, staring at her back.

  
   
*

  
   
He doesn’t see her for the rest of the evening, but he feels her with every single cell in his body. As a thorn in his soul; as a flame threatening to consume him; as his new center of gravity.

Lying on his bed, shirtless, in his training pants, with one arm bent way over his head, he feels every muscle in his body. As if he’s been dead for the past six months and her presence brought him back to the land of the living. But since he's afraid she’ll disappear again, he almost wishes he stayed dead.

  
Kylo thinks the weight of the Finalizer is shifted by her presence, as if everything on it, including him, is tilted and out of balance. He feels so aware and very much awake.

So he gets up and trains.

His knights are wary of him when he’s like this.

Not yet near explosion, channeling his energy into precise, vicious slays.

There’s a highway between his heart and his saberhand and everything that’s been bottled up runs there unobstructed.

He wishes he could pray.

To whom and how, he doesn’t know. But there are no deities in his world, only the Force.

And the Force doesn't seem to be with him today.

  
   
*

  
Cocooned in the captain’s quarters of the Millennium Falcon, nestled in the giant, busy hanger of the Finalizer, Rey sits in silence for a long time, staring at her hands.

Nobody ever warned her words can hurt so much, when words were scarce on Jakku and offered no salvation.

And here she is, stabbing with her words instead of weapons and being equally wounded by them.

  
She knows sleep will avoid her tonight, but she still takes off her clothes and unwraps her breasts. For a brief moment, her palms hover over her nipples, pert and untouched, and then she furiously presses them with both hands and exhales sharply.

  
She knew he must have been hurt; she just didn’t know the extent of his pain until she found it staring back at her through his eyes.

She quickly dons an oversized t-shirt she uses for sleeping, curls into a fetal position, wraps her arms around her knees and closes her eyes. Her skin is too tight and her heart is too fast, awake, sparked off like fireworks.

The ship’s darkness is enveloping her, but that darkness is throbbing in the rhythm of his name  
   
 

  
 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading, leaving kudos and commenting! 
> 
>  
> 
> I'm so thrilled to know there's someone out there willing to take this journey with me :)
> 
>  
> 
> Chapter 2 is up and as usual, please, let me know how you feel about it. 
> 
>    
> As before this fic is unbetaed and all the mistakes are exclusively mine. 
> 
> I assume most of you know I'm spacecath on tumblr, too, but there, I said it again :)
> 
> Come find me and let's chat!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In a rare moment of clarity Rey sees her life as a series of space travels centered around Kylo - coming to him with a heart swelled with hope, only to leave him again for they wouldn’t know how to stay together.
> 
> Until none of it matters any longer, until one of them, or both, stop trying, until life passes them by and all that’s left is this old regret.
> 
> Her heart is as tight as her fist as she runs after Kylo, a walking wound of a man, down the endless corridor.
> 
>  
> 
> Her whole life now is reduced to chasing Kylo, who doesn’t want to face her, but nevertheless leaves the door to his compartment open for her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a misfortune of losing the entire chapter three last week due to my treacherous computer giving up on me and this is what I managed to recreate from my memory. 
> 
> Just completing this chapter and posting it today feels like a small victory.
> 
> Words backup, or the lack of it, will not be uttered in my presence :)
> 
> I hope this fic still has a few readers left and I sincerely hope I'll hear from them :)
> 
> As before, this fic is unbetaed and all the mistakes are exclusively mine.

 

Somewhere in this Galaxy, in _his_ Galaxy, is always day. There are mines to be operated, there are laws to be passed, mutinies to be quenched.

The Galaxy never sleeps.

  
Nor does Kylo Ren.

  
He looks at his own reflection in the dim bathroom - at his bare chest and the marks on it, the corollaries of his choices, - at his own stubbled, scarred face his grooming droid works on, trying to erase a sleepless night.

  
Sleep is the enemy, it slows him down, it makes him mellow.

  
He shouldn’t give in to it.

  
Just like he shouldn’t give in to Rey’s intoxicating presence.

  
He straightens up, the old resolve, to show her what they could’ve been, fortified in his mind.

  
His orders were broadcast to the whole Galaxy on the holonet and he feels he’s earned this moment of self-satisfaction, especially because he can already feel the obedient wheels, oiled by the fear of the First Order, being set in motion.

  
He’s taken a step along the way he thinks she’d like and the only thing is to keep walking.

  
Kylo has made a plan and the only thing he can do is wait.

  
*

The sleep she’s fallen into is not sleep at all — rather a series of fitful dreams, she keeps waking up from and falling back into, until her head spins and the real rest is not even in the realm of possibilities.

Her thoughts are jagged and incoherent, almost unbearable.

  
There’s a long list of things she shouldn’t have done and it starts with coming here.

  
Rey’s head is pounding at the thought it might get a lot longer in days to come.

  
She can’t trust herself around Kylo…. around _Ben_.

  
For he was always Ben to her, even when she mostly wanted him gone from her life.

Calling him by his make-up name feels like punishing him, except that doing this she sort of punishes herself, too.

  
The pounding in her head becomes more insistent until she sits up, realizing it comes from the general direction of the door.

 _It's not him_ , the Force in her says, but her heart clings to a tiny hope until the two unmasked knights of Ren face her when she opens the door.

She straightens up in front of them puffed-eyed, dishevelled, but nevertheless defiant.

One of them is awkwardly balancing a huge tray filled with food. The food is fit for a king both in quality and abundance, and everything about it annoys her beyond belief.

  
She doesn’t even try to hide the sentiment.

  
“We have our orders”, the other knight says, trying to push past her, despite having no doubts about her mood.

  
It surprises her that their fear of Kylo's judgement trumps their awareness that she is a Force user on another level, and can turn them into statues and adorn their limbs and ears with food she would trample on just to prove the point.

  
Petty, childish point that she doesn’t need anything from their master.

  
Something akin to shame washes over her, for none of this is their fault.

  
She sees in them the same coiled vigilance she recognizes in Kylo.

The same awareness she would see in herself, if she were only honest to herself.

  
But this is not a day for candid self-searching.

  
“The orders!” she says in the sweetest voice. “Why didn’t you say so in the first place.”

  
She takes the tray from the confused knight and stomps down the ramp.

  
“Are my movements restricted in any way?”

  
She stomps on, not waiting for their answer.

 

 

*

 

Poe’s X-wing stands lonely in the far corner of the hangar.

She hasn’t seen it last night.

  
The truth is it didn’t even occur to her to look for it.

  
_Who are you really here to see, Rey?_

  
She approaches it on a hunch and looks around until she’s greeted by BB-8’s cheerful chirping.

  
“I know, my dear friend, I’m working on it,” she says, kneeling down in front of the astromech, overwhelmed by a sudden bout of nostalgia. Their joint escapade on Jakku seems like eons ago.

Considering the astromech to be her _dear friend_ must be a testament to her loneliness.

  
But it’s the first friendly face on this giant, sterile ship, and she’ll take what she can get.

 

*

 

It’s the same semi-lit corridor that greets her as she stubbornly defies the motion-activated lights, trying to outpace them, the astromech trailing behind her.

It looks unused, unwalked on, creepier than last night.

At the end of it, Poe’s former cell gapes at her.

  
The sight makes her angry and at the same time it warms her heart.

  
She turns around, fighting a bout of helplessness.

  
“How are we going to find him now, on a ship this big?”

  
It’s a rhetorical question, but BB-8 chirps cheerfully in response and her face brightens.

  
“I should’ve know you’d map this place!”

  
The first genuine smile in days lingers on her lips as she hurries back to the turbolift.

 

*

  
The metal door they end up at is guarded by two stormtroopers.

Knocking them out using the Force, before they even realize what’s happening, brings a smile on her face - the smile that still lingers on her lips, when she opens the door to Poe’s new compartment and presses her index finger over her lips.

  
“You can’t break me out!” Poe says, his eyes wide, pointing at the camera in the corner.

Even though it’s a clear improvement, compared to his cell, -  for there’s a table next to his bed, and a viewport over it, and even a holonet screen - this is still a prison.

  
“I’m not breaking you out. I’m breaking myself in,” she says cheerfully, waving at the camera with her free hand, and resorting to using the Force to balance the tray with food.

  
Poe hesitates for a second, but then a smile matching hers breaks on his face, and he sits down next to her on his bed.

  
“You’re really something, Rey of Jakku,” he says, helping himself with the food. “Well, we might as well eat while we’re waiting to get arrested.”

  
“You’re already arrested,” she mumbles with her mouth full of some unidentified fruit. Its taste is seductively sweet, and it hits all her senses at once.

  
There are many things she hasn’t seen, felt, tasted yet - summer light dancing over flowers, ripe juices of changing seasons; someone’s plush lips.

  
There are stray thoughts she wants to banish, purge from her head, but being here in Kylo’s space makes it all difficult.

She didn’t think she would be so little in control of herself. She hasn’t seen it coming.

  
“Kylo won’t be happy about this,” Poe warns her.

  
“I’m not here to make Kylo Ren happy,” she retorts.

  
“But annoying him won’t help anyone either,” he says reasonably and she only grunts in response.

  
“What did he do to you?” she asks.

  
_What did he make you reveal,_ she wants to ask, but is afraid of the answers she might get.

  
“Nothing,” Poe says casually.

  
“What do you mean nothing?”

  
She stops chewing, her eyes on him.

  
“That’s the thing, Rey. He did _nothing_. It looked as if he was putting a show for that fool Hux.”

  
“That’s…not like him,” she says.

  
“Yes, Rey, that is _so_ not like him,” Poe says pointedly and turns to face her, searching for her eyes.

  
“What happened between you and Kylo?” he asks bluntly.

  
Rey’s cheeks start burning as she tries to avoid his piercing gaze.

  
“Nothing happened. Absolutely nothing.”

  
“Nothing would’ve been enough. There’s usually an intricate story behind _absolutely nothing,_ ” Poe says off-handedly.

  
She keeps avoiding his eyes and busies herself with eating.

  
“Rey,” he leans down in another attempt to catch her eyes. “You delivered yourself, the most wanted person in the Galaxy, straight to the beast without blinking and instead of arresting you and putting you on trial along with me, the new Supreme leader acts like he’s trying to get on your good side. What happened? How did you kill Snoke?”

  
“With Luke’s saber,” she holds his gaze now, her eyes large and clear. “Cut him in two using the Force.”

  
“What did Kylo do?”

  
_This one is easy_.

  
“Fought me for the saber. I won. Sort of. But you’ve seen the leftovers.”

  
She hops off the bed and stands before him, planting her hands on her hips.

  
“C’mon, Poe, you’ve seen him. He couldn’t wait to cash in on it and enthrone himself. I did him a favor, that’s why he’s so lenient.”

  
She shrugs and opens her mouth to say some more, when Kylo slides in, dishevelled and wearing his training pants and a sleeveless, black shirt, the angry saber hissing in his gloved hand.

  
His chest starts heaving when he takes in the sight in front of him, but before he says anything, the sound of marching feet and voices approaching down the corridor, make all three of them turn their heads towards the door.

  
“You can’t do this and not attract Hux’s attention,” Kylo hisses at Rey. “You can’t go alone against his army!”

  
“I was hoping I wouldn’t be alone,” she retorts.

  
A shadow flits across his face, too fast to register with Rey.

  
“You shouldn’t have come,” he says, his teeth clenched.

  
Poe crosses his arms and shakes his head.

  
“I’m with Kylo on this.”

  
“What is this, exclusive boys’ club?” Rey looks from Poe to Kylo in disbelief.

  
Hux comes in the next moment, followed by a large entourage, consisting of the First order officers and stormtroopers.

  
A few of them look startled on seeing their Supreme leader standing in the middle of the prisoner’s compartment, but before anyone manages to open their mouth, Kylo takes a tiny step that brings him between Rey and General Hux.

His saber is still menacingly hissing and for a moment that seems to be the only sound on the whole ship.

  
“There was a breach of security,” Hux says, his suspicious eyes taking all in - the tray with the food, the lit saber and Kylo’s large body almost hiding Rey from him.

  
“It’s under control,” Kylo says, his jaw set.

  
“I knew letting her roam on her own would be a bad idea,” Hux continues, trying to look around Kylo, directly at Rey.

  
She makes a move, a tiny step towards him and he flinches.

  
“I am not afraid of your Jedi mind tricks,” he says to her, looking very much afraid.

Then he turns to Poe.

  
“You might have gotten out of the prison cell, but if you even breathe in the direction of that door, I will personally hunt you down.”

  
Poe’s standing by the wall, looking bored, and then he leans down to pick up a cookie from the tray.

  
“Hey, Hugs, lighten up, man, you look rather constipated,” he says, munching the cookie and eyeing the food leftovers on the tray.

  
Hux makes a move towards him, but then glances at Kylo and quickly turns around to go, red in the face. His soldiers follow him, somehow trying to make themselves smaller, almost invisible in their retreat.

Kylo’s tiny, almost inaudible exhale makes Rey’s hand twitch towards him, but his icy gaze freezes her on the spot.

  
There’s so much anguish in his eyes, her heart flutters, chestised and ashamed.

  
_I have to fix this, I have to fix him,_ she thinks looking at his broad back, as his long, fast strides, take him away down the corridor.

  
She doesn’t bother explaining anything to Poe, for lying to him seems pointless - just looks apologetically at him before running after Kylo.

  
Poe finds himself completely alone, apart from BB-8.

He looks wistfully at the door gaping open and then sprawls on the bed, with his arms crossed, looking through the viewport at the twinkling stars, suddenly aware he has nowhere to go.

 

*

 

In a rare moment of clarity Rey sees her life as a series of space travels centered around Kylo - coming to him with a heart swelled with hope, only to leave him again for they wouldn’t know how to stay together.

Until none of it matters any longer, until one of them, or both, stop trying, until life passes them by and all that’s left is this old regret.

Her heart is as tight as her fist as she runs after Kylo, a walking wound of a man, down the endless corridor.

  
Her whole life now is reduced to chasing Kylo, who doesn’t want to face her, but nevertheless leaves the door to his compartment open for her.

  
She has exactly a half a second to look around, but even that is enough — there’s not much to see anyway: a single viewport, a lonely bed and a table full of untouched food, several screens on the walls - and a few doors leading most likely to other gloomy compartments.

  
She lets her slender fingers wrap around his wrist, stopping him mid-movement.

  
“Ben,” she says.

  
Kylo feels his heart stop, giving up on him. And he knows there’s only one way to restart it.

 

  
*

 

Her lips are wet and slightly parted and they’re the only thing he sees when he finally turns and looks at her.

He dreamt about them, about teasing them with his tongue, about how they must feel under his lips, on his neck, around his cock.

All his blood leaves his head and pools down, into his lower regions.

  
She must know, she must feel it, too, for she blushes and withdraws her hand.

  
There’s a moment in which decisions are made and directions are chosen, and he holds her gaze as he reaches for her hand and puts it back where it was.

  
“Why are you really here?” he asks, his voice barely above a whisper.

  
It’s a question. It’s a plea.

  
“You wouldn’t talk to me,” she says, lifting her chin, offering her words as the only, naked truth she can give him.

  
He’s still rigid but he already sees himself leaning down to her, ravishing those cruel, ripe lips of hers.

  
One touch. That’s all it takes.

  
One touch of her fingers and he’s about to start unrevelling.

  
He’s not sure he can fight this anymore — no, he’s _sure_ he can’t.

This is the battle he lost in advance.

  
“Train with me,” he says as if asking her on a date.

  
She tilts her head and bites her lip.

  
“Nobody kicked your supreme ass lately?” she asks, her mouth already widened, her cheeks dimpled.

  
His smile is just a twitch in the corner of his lips, but they both know it’s there.

  
“I have no one to talk to,” he says and his words wipe the smile off her face.

  
“And yet you shut me out!”

  
He lets her fingers slide to his palm and looks pointedly at their joined hands.

  
Maybe, just maybe he should’ve chosen better.

She should’ve been his light.

  
If it’s up to him, he wouldn’t move from here to eternity, but he’s jolted back to the present moment when her fingers slide out of his.

  
“Where do you train?” she asks, her hazel eyes wide and inquisitive.

  
Kylo doesn’t trust his voice, but he motions her to the adjacent compartment - it’s large and windowless and contains staffs, and sabers and all kinds of gears that made her eyes widen.

This could be her personal version of heaven.

  
“May I?” she asks, gesturing towards various weapons, glancing at him.

He can’t hide his smile so he just nods.

  
Rey choses a staff, predictably, so he goes for a training lightsaber.

  
He doesn’t wait for her to be ready - he attacks, mercilessly and seemingly with no reserve, testing her limits and his own resolve.

It seems to take her by surprise for her eyes flash green at him and she moves stealthily around him in this vicious dance only the two of them know steps of.

  
_This is how I'll always know you, this is how I’ll always find you_ , he thinks and his heart leaps.

His blood runs faster, his thoughts feel more spirited.

  
Nobody could challenge him more than her, nobody even comes close to her.

  
He uses the Force to reach for her for the first time in months, sweeping over her mind, and it feels rusty and familiar and he doesn’t understand how he managed to survive without this feeling.

He was starving and she is his feast.

  
She must feel him there, for she stumbles and almost goes down on her knees, and he wants to pick her up and hold her, but maintains his distance - just lets her scramble herself up on her feet, while he keeps himself alert.

  
“You’ve gone soft,” he says in an amused voice, trying not to smile.

  
_Darling, sweetheart, my love_ , he wants to add and then he sets his jaw to prevent the words from betraying him.

  
But she seems to know it all, she seems to have known it all this time, for she plays dirty - a flash of a knowing smile, a threatening knee high between his legs, and she has an upper hand, pinning him to the wall.

  
His arms would go limp if she let him go.

  
He holds her gaze, simply existing, while waiting for her lips to make up their mind.

  
And when she finally props up on her toes to reach him, when her mouth decends on his, their kiss is barely a brush, but it shakes his world.

  
He wants more, he wants it all.

  
Her lips are as sweet as the fruit he sent her.

  
He dreamt about dripping its juice all over her body and licking it slowly, until there’s nothing else in her mind but his name.

  
It’s her turn to go limp in his arms and he catches her and presses her to the wall, his lips awkwardly unaccustumed to kissing her with no restraints.

  
Her fingers are on his nape, traveling through his hair, exploring his skin.

Her breath is unbearably hot and rugged.

He tries to think and exist without breaking this kiss, for he’s not sure either of them would survive it.

  
He breathes her in - her slightly sweaty skin, her tangled hair with loose strands, smelling like the air on his father’s ship.

Smelling like his childhood.

  
Feeling like home.

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He loves her with his eyes, following shadows on her skin; he loves her with his forbearing fingers, with his determined lips.
> 
>  
> 
> Her need seeps through the Force and he obeys its command. Her apprehension lets him know when to be cautious.
> 
>  
> 
> She tastes like long forgotten comfort, like happiness on a lazy afternoon; she feels like everything he didn’t know he wanted - love, and light and laughter and she lets him in with no reserve, wrapping her small hands around his neck and letting out a few small gasps when the new sensations overwhelm them both and render their consciousness redundant.
> 
>  
> 
> He couldn’t imagine a happiness this intense just like he can’t, at that moment, imagine how bereavement must feel.
> 
>  
> 
> A thought creeps up on him and starts growing roots in his mind, taking up the shape of a future pain.
> 
>  
> 
> Stay, he whispers to the hollows of her hips, stay, he whispers to her navel, to her breasts.
> 
>  
> 
> And she closes her eyes to hide her answer.

His lips are on hers and then they’re not.

  
Deprivation renders her petrified.

  
Will he storm out again? Close their Force bond that is crackling so lively between them?

  
The dormant snake in her chest raises its ugly head.

  
_Everybody leaves you anyway._

  
This is not the loss she can live through, so she lets her hands slide to his bare arms.

His muscles are solid underneath her fingers, her nails are digging into them, and she refuses to open her eyes, afraid what she might see in his.

  
He seems to sense at least some of her terror through their newly open bond, for he draws her closer, his body singing to her _I’m here_ and _feel me_.

  
Their mixed breath is intoxicating and she wonders what his hands can do to her body, if this is how his lips feel.

  
She is no stranger to why and how; she’s seen it, and she sometimes kept her eyes closed to it, for there was no shortage of copulations on Jakku, but she never felt the need to let anyone come that close to her, and her shaft was a good defense from anyone who had any _ideas_.

  
And now she has an _idea_ and this all-pervading feeling of heat and want and need leaves her mind in a state of permanent mayhem.

  
When she finally risks cracking her eyelids open, she finds his eyes boring into hers.

  
“I have a plan,” he says.

  
His words are ardent just like his gaze, his warm fingers still cradling her jaw.

  
Her mind is eons away from this physical place, in the realm of losses and possibilities.

  
“What?” she stutters.

  
Kylo might be a man in need, but _his need_ doesn’t seem to be of the same substance as _hers_ at this very moment.

  
He wants her to see, and hear and understand, and he seems to lack words, so he just licks his lips and says it again.

  
“I have a plan.”

  
His Force is a whirlwind and she senses his turmoil.

  
“I’m listening,” she says, regaining her composure, and freeing herself from his arms.

  
She sits on a chair a bit further from him, looking inquisitively at his imposing form, her hands captured between her thighs lest she reaches for him again.

  
“Can’t you just let him go?”

  
He looks exasperated and the dark circles underneath his eyes seem deeper than ever.

  
“He was caught in action. There’s evidence he was going after the dreadnought. It’s treason.“

  
His voice is even, a tad resigned.

  
Rey bites her cheek.

  
“But as Supreme Leader you can grant him pardon!”

  
Their eyes meet for a second and then he averts his gaze.

  
“The First Order doesn’t pardon terrorists,” he says evenly.

  
Rey jumps from her seat, abandoning all pretenses.

  
“The First Order should’ve died with Snoke!”

  
“You should’ve stayed with me to see to it,” he says, with an edge in his voice.

  
She knows the importance of this moment, similar to so many moments they shared before, moments where the differences between them were like insurmountable mountains.

  
Moments scripted after the same pattern.

  
_Disagree, get angry, disappear -_ none of it ever amounted to anything good.

  
She sits down again, and takes a deep breath.

  
His surprise is almost palpable and he lets it linger on his face.

  
“Hux is breathing down my neck,” he says, quietly. “He has the army, I have the Force.”

  
_And I don’t have you_ hangs between them.

  
He looks down at his hands, his lips slightly pouted - the same lips that were on hers not so long ago and her body responds with a shudder.

  
She knows she should focus on his words, for those words are important, and lives depend on them, and he needs her to listen and think, and yet…she kissed him and he wanted it, too, and everything must be different now, right?

  
“Okay, so what happens now?”

  
“I’m assembling a Tribunal. It will be up to them to decide what happens with General Dameron.”

  
“Wait, what? Any court of justice consisting of the First Order minions is bound to sentence him to death!”

  
She sounds breathless as if she’s for the first time truly grasped that possibility.

  
“I’ve given the orders. The emissaries from the Rims should be here by the end of the day.”

  
She frowns, trying to grasp all the possibilities hidden in his words.

  
“Colonies?”

  
“Colonies, too,” he nods. “The decision will be theirs. Hux will represent the First Order. My knights and I will make sure their decision is carried out without anybody’s interference.”

  
Rey choses her next words carefully.

  
“Who is going to defend Poe?”

  
She knows the answer to that question and her voice falters as her lips envelop around Poe’s name.

  
She hasn’t seen it coming and yet, it’s probably the only logical development in everybody’s eyes.

  
“And I’m making this trial legitimate by being here!” she exclaims, her voice surprisingly bitter.

  
“Rey,” he growls her name, his irritation with what he deems to be her lack of understanding, palpable. “I didn’t ask you to come.”

  
His words come out harsher than intended and he snaps his mouth shut, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat.

  
“But that’s more than I could’ve hoped for. Because the last time I saw you, you didn’t choose _me_ ,” he adds, bitterness taking the better part of him.

  
Because he can’t not remind her of what’s caused this crater in his chest, the biggest scar of them all.

  
His lips quiver, and in his mind, as open as it is, she senses an ever-lasting fear of abandonment, the same one she’s been carrying around all her life.

  
She looks at him, fighting the need to hug him, to kiss him again, to soothe his anguish.

  
And yet, some things must be said, even if they hurt him further.

  
“Ben,” she says, searching for his eyes. “you didn’t choose _me_ either. Rey, you asked to stay, was what you imagined me to be. I would always be both more and less.”

  
He’s silent for a moment pondering her words.

It’s not that they’re not entirely true.

  
It’s more that his choice was less of a choice than she knew.

  
There’s too much space between them, space filled with heavy words, treacherous notions that can take her away from him again.

  
He won’t let this happen again. He won’t let her leave before she hears his side of the story.

  
He crouches down next to her, and reaches for her hand.

  
“We would’ve worked it out. Ruling is about maintaining an elusive balance,” he says looking up at her, his fingers playing with hers.

  
Whenever he touches her, a missing piece of him falls into its place.

  
He brings her hand to his face, his lips caressing the inner side of her wrist and she shudders, as her fingers cradle his cheek.

  
“There is still a definite right and wrong in this story,” she says in a strangled voice and for a moment, he’s not sure either of them believes that.

  
“What do you do when the strong start enslaving the week? My grandfather was a slave, that’s what happens. The Jedi did nothing to right that wrong. They took him with them because they wanted to use him. What do you do when a war breaks out? Meditate on it? It’s the Jedi way. Inefficient. I’m trying to build something new, more just than the First Order, more efficient than any of the Republics.”

  
Rey shifts uncomfortably for there’s the truth in his words she can’t deny.

When they touch each other like this, it’s difficult to remember everything else that exists and separates them, for here and now there are only the two of them and the Force between them.

  
But if she’s here to defend Poe, she will have to accept playing by the First Order rules.

  
“How can I be sure it would be a fair trial?”

  
He straightens up and takes a deep breath, still holding her hand.

  
“In the end you’ll have to trust _me._ ”

 

*

 

When his commlink beeps, announcing the arrival of the first delegation, he looks annoyed, even exasperated.

  
Anything that separates him from her now is a nuisance.

  
“You could come with me,” he says suddenly hopeful, for tearing his eyes off of her seems like an impossible task.

  
She shakes her head even before he utters those words, and gets up to go.

  
“I want Poe to know all this,” she says. “If I am to be the only one standing by him tomorrow, he needs to know his odds.”

  
He nods curtly, a question in his eyes.

  
She hesitates at the door.

  
“Find me when you’re done. Bring some food,” she adds, and his lips quirk a bit.

  
She leaves quickly, even before he considers whether to kiss her again or save it for later, for there will be later, his heart, fluttering with hope, is sure of it now.

  
Before he takes a shower and gets ready to meet the incoming delegations, he stares at his own reflection in the mirror and for once he likes what he sees.

 

*

 

 

Back on the Millennium Falcon, standing in the fresher and fumbling with its ever-changing water pressure, Rey tries to think of the best way how to defend Poe.

He didn’t actually have any constructive input for her.

  
It’s an understatement to say Poe was displeased with the turn of events. More like furious, raging, suspicious, belligerent.

  
“He’s using you!” he kept repeating, while she was patiently trying to get him to think of the ways how to get the members of the Tribunal to see things from the Resistance’s point of view.

  
She fastens her white tunic with a large belt, finds a pair of light tights, and lets her hair down, pressing for a moment her lips with her fingers.

  
_Tonight!_

  
The loud knock on the door makes her stumble, and she hurries to open it, only to find the same two knights from that very morning standing there, this time with two trays loaded with food.

  
She takes it all from them without much ado, not meeting their eyes, still unwilling to remember their morning encounter.

  
She murmurs her thanks as the door closes with a hydraulic hiss.

  
And the only thing she can do now is wait.

 

*

 

  
Kylo Ren, impeccably dressed in his official attire, with an angry cape billowing behind him, almost smiles when the last delegation arrives.

  
It will soon be over and he’ll be free to go to her.

  
Their kiss, their talk feel so unreal as he stands at the docking station, his face trained to be impassive, as the scenes from that morning play in front of his eyes.

  
The hangar was a pretty busy place all afternoon and receiving delegations seems to have taken for ever.

Ever since he announced the trial, the Holonet provided food for the insatiable curiosity of the Galaxy.

  
Hux is forever displeased and has immediately tried to limit the number of attendees. Kylo knows Hux would much rather deal with Poe away from the prying eyes and his discomfort amuses him.

There’s not one single thing about his plan Hux approves and Kylo wonders — not _if,_ but _when_ Hux will break down.

  
So he waits.

  
And he’s already made sure he can communicate with his Knights on a separate, encrypted channel.

  
All that time Kylo’s eyes dart to the oval shape of the Millennium Falcon in the far corner of the hangar.

  
He feels her impatience and it makes him smile, too.

  
_Soon, my love_ , he thinks, as he steps into the turbolift to accompany the delegates to their compartments.

  
A few minutes later he steps out of it again, and hurries into the semi-darkness of an almost deserted hangar.

  
Hux is nowhere to be seen, hasn't been around all day, but he’s still moving cautiously.

  
Here he is, Supreme Leader of the Galaxy, sneaking through the hangar of his own ship, trying to get to the girl he loves, unnoticed.

  
Rey’s corner of the hangar is dim-lit and silent, the door to the Millennium Falcon firmly closed.

  
He considers announcing his coming, not exactly knocking, not exactly asking if he may come in, lest he sets a dangerous precedent. And yet barging in on her doesn’t feel right, either, so he stomps up the ramp, making significant noise to warn her and trusting she’d hear him, feel him, and then he uses the Force to open the durasteel door.

  
He hasn’t stepped on this ship for what feels like ages.

It would be a lie to say it doesn’t hit him, it doesn’t all come back to him, everything at once.

His childhood, his abandonment, his crimes and then he spots her at the end of the corridor, motioning him in, and her smile wipes it all out.

  
The food he sent her is already arranged on the plates in the kitchenette, but he stands there awkwardly for everything about this is so new and unknown and fills him with trepidation.

  
Ray is as beautiful as a dream in the soft light, with her hair down and her eyes so warm and shining.

  
She takes both his hands in hers and slowly peels his gloves off, finger by finger, her eyes never leaving his.

  
His breath hitches in his throat when he feels her warm, nimble fingers on his skin.

  
“Let’s eat first,” she says lightly.

  
They eat in silence, or she eats and he mostly watches her, sitting rigidly up, barely breathing.

It’s been years since he did anything remotely normal that included enjoying anyone’s company and here she is, Rey, who destroyed him and reassembled him again, sharing a meal with him in an intimate semi-darkness of his father’s ship.

  
He tries to talk about the trial tomorrow, he asks about Poe’s reaction, but she just shakes her head at him, her eyes determined and clear.

Her fingers find his palm again and he lets them nest there.

His blood pressure rises instantly, and thumps dully in his ears.

  
“All that belongs to tomorrow, Ben. None of it exists tonight.”

  
He knows what she’s offering, and yet he wishes they could go slower.

  
Slower like normal people do.

  
For slower is not for those who will tomorrow again be on the opposite sides of the trenches with the weight of the Galaxy on their shoulders.

  
But going slower leads nowhere when everything inside you is burning.

  
The thumping is audible now and it occurs to him that it has nothing to do with his quickened pulse.

  
Rey cocks her head and stands up abruptly.

  
Her bag resembles a slumped animal in the corner of the compartment.

Something inside it rattles and blue light pours out through the porous cloth.

They huddle in unison over the leftovers of the Anakin’s saber that seems to have chosen the worst moment to talk to them. Or the best. Maybe the best.

  
Rey’s eyes are wondrously lit and he can’t help but smile at her, for the Force in them recognizes the reason behind it all.

  
“Do you think…?” she starts, looking afraid of finishing that sentence, and yet picking up the lower part of the hilt and extending it towards him.

  
The kyber crystal in it starts hissing.

  
He slowly picks up the other part.

  
Rey’s eyes never leave his as the parts of the broken lightsaber find each other and the crystal heals, filling the compartment with the hissing bright light.

  
In the ensuing silence, in the blue shadows coloring the space around them, her lips find his and he feels they fit together like two parts of the broken saber.

 

 

*

 

 

Her body is soft and pliant underneath his fingers.

Her body is the world and he wants to enter it and hold it and never let it go.

  
She seems equally fascinated by him, touching him everywhere, studying the lengths and widths and firmnesses and he closes his eyes thinking how this is all worth dying for.

  
“I don’t know,” she starts and he freezes.

“I don’t know how this should be done” she says, doe-eyed, and yet still curious.

And lovely. Curiously lovely.

  
“Yeah, me neither.”

  
_We’ll figure it out, together. Just like we’ve been figuring everything else together,_ he thinks.

  
His cape is strewn over the bunk bed, their clothes on the floor next to it, but there are no hurried movements between them tonight.

  
He loves her with his eyes, following shadows on her skin; he loves her with his forbearing fingers, with his determined lips.

  
Her need seeps through the Force and he obeys its command. Her apprehension lets him know when to be cautious.

  
She tastes like long forgotten comfort, like happiness on a lazy afternoon; she feels like everything he didn’t know he wanted - love, and light and laughter and she lets him in with no reserve, wrapping her small hands around his neck and letting out a few small gasps when the new sensations overwhelm them both and render their consciousness redundant.

  
He couldn’t imagine a happiness this intense just like he can’t, at that moment, imagine how bereavement must feel.

  
A thought creeps up on him and starts growing roots in his mind, taking up the shape of a future pain.

  
_Stay_ , he whispers to the hollows of her hips, _stay_ , he whispers to her navel, to her breasts.

  
And she closes her eyes to hide her answer.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for kudos and lovely words.
> 
> We're almost done with this little "troublesome and terrible" fic :))
> 
> Stay tuned to see where our lovebirds go from here!
> 
> This fic is unbetaed and thoroughly unedited - all mistakes are on me


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Unmasked, that’s what he is.
> 
>  
> 
> She’s finished what she started in that interrogation chamber when he removed his helmet for her.
> 
> Ever since that day she’s been uncovering him, removing layer by layer and what she’s holding in her arms now is the essential Ben Solo, naked and vulnerable and only hers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to the moon and back for all the kudos, comments and encouraging words.
> 
> I hope you like how this fic ends, but even if you don't, make sure you let me know.  
> Writing is a solitary activity and sometimes things work well only in my mind, but get distorted on their way to the readers, so any feedback is welcome.
> 
> I have updated the archive warning, and if you want to skip that one sentence containing graphic description of violence, stop reading at "Except-" (I put so much space there just in case) and start reading again at "Kylo is already behind Rey".
> 
> As usual, this chapter is unbetaed and all the mistakes are mine.
> 
> I am using both his names throughout the chapter - Kylo for official purposes when he acts as Supreme Leader, and Ben when he's with Rey for he is by now only Ben to her. I hope it's not too confusing. 
> 
> Thank you once again for sticking around, it was a pleasure sharing this with you XXX

  
Outside of the darkness they’re immersed in the night glides into day, and hours crumble into minutes.

  
Rey wants to imagine them together, inhabiting a place out of space, or time, out of this dismal Galaxy, whose future weighs them down and pushes them apart. Timekeeping is merciless in shattering one’s dreams when time is all you need.

  
She tightens her arm around Ben’s broad shoulders in response to her cumbersome thoughts.

  
His head is heavy on her chest, his hair hiding his face, spilled over her body, tickling her.

  
He fell asleep in the middle of fondling with her breasts and it would be comical if she didn’t know the degree of his fatigue and felt it herself through the Force.

  
Rey has never seen anyone sleep so peacefully as Ben does in her arms.

  
She shifts a bit to have a better view of his face and cautiously moves a strand of hair that’s falling into his eyes.

He just sighs, her name a murmur on his lips, and presses a sleepy kiss on her breast.

  
_Unmasked_ , that’s what he is.

  
She’s finished what she started in that interrogation chamber when he removed his helmet for her.

Ever since that day she’s been uncovering him, removing layer by layer and what she’s holding in her arms now is the essential Ben Solo, naked and vulnerable and only hers.

  
There’s a world of rules and opinions, duties and limits, out there that will separate them, and every minute they postpone facing it feels like a small victory.

 

  
*

 

 _Don’t open your eyes,_ he says to himself.

Her warm skin is underneath his cheek, her arm tightened around him, her long legs entwined with his.

He feels her breathing next to him, he feels her presence in the Force and he doesn’t need to _see_.

  
Seeing is overrated; talking, too.

  
Not to mention ruling Galaxies.

  
None of it should matter to him now, none of it really does, except to be able to feel her soft body next to his.

  
Touching, that’s what matters; kissing, too, and everything else that follows, that makes him want to crawl out of his skin and join her in hers.

  
He shuts his eyes tighter, his eyelashes brushing her skin.

  
He almost dozes off by the sheer power of will.

  
_Almost_ , for sleeping feels like a waste of time, now more than ever.

  
In that brief, weightless moment when his brain shuts down and resets, Ben Solo dreams of an island.

 

*

 

She wakes up from the pleasant slumber when the air around her gets colder and she opens her eyes.

  
He’s sitting on the edge of the bed, half-turned to have a better view of her.

  
His expression scares her, and she’s immediately fully awake, jolted by the unrefined anguish in his eyes.

  
There’s a faint beeping coming from the pile of his clothes on the floor and they both look at it, holding their breaths, until it stops.

  
“It can get nasty out there today,” he says, reaching for her, letting the back of his hand travel down her cheek, down her neck. “Unpredictable. Hux is on the warpath and it would take a little to push him over the edge.”

  
His heavy sigh echoes in her body.

  
He stretches his long body, giving her a full view of his back.

There’s a pattern of intertwined scars there — a fine, purplish web over his pale skin.

  
And there are furrows her nails made last night on top of them.

  
“Those are my marks,” she says.

  
“You’re everywhere,” he says, turning his scared cheek to her. “And when you leave, you take everything that matters with you. And all that I thought I wanted is meaningless and unbearable.”

  
His voice is tender, confessional, undemanding.

  
But the most unbearable is that he’s not touching her now.

She bares her body and crawls into his lap.

  
“Being apart does not equal leaving,” she whispers.

  
She catches his eyes and after a long moment of intense staring, he nods.

 

*

 

There’s nothing hurried in the way he makes love to her once more before he’s forced to leave and be what he no longer wants to be — saying good-bye to her curves, and folds, and crevices, prodding, kissing, in a wet embrace and an interminable attempt to memorize it all for later, when the unkind time stretches once again between them.

  
He wants to be Ben Solo again, he wants to have faith in them, but Kylo Ren will forever inhabit the scorched part of his soul, where darkness and doubt reign.

  
Rey’s presence is the only cure for it, and even the thought of being alone again smells like despair.

Wrapping her in his arms, he holds on to the only light he has in his life for a little longer.

 

*

 

He sneaks out of the Millennium Falcon with the taste of her skin on his lips, wrapped in his cape that smells like her.

He feels alive again, clinging to the hope she’s given him — part traitor, part savior.

  
The trial with its unpredictable outcome is looming over him and his shoulders sag a bit for the only thing he can do now is wait.

  
Turbolift is taking him back to his destiny, to the title he’s now sure he never really wanted.

 

*

 

“Well, well, well, if it isn’t the Supreme Leader himself gracing us with his presence,” Hux stands up from the head of the table when he enters the briefing room.

  
“What is the meaning of this?” Kylo Ren demands.

  
The ice has never been thinner than it is now, when the First Order officers — Hux’s officers — stare impassively at him.

  
“Emergency briefing. The one you should’ve scheduled, but somehow failed to. You would’ve known I did it for you, if you bothered to answer your comlink.”

  
Hux looks terribly amused by the turn of events, for Kylo’s timely appearance seems to fit into his plan of debunking him.

  
_Here’s our Supreme Leader, dishevelled, ungroomed, kiss-bruised._

  
_Traitor._

  
Kylo Ren’s throat is parched and swallowing seems impossible so he remains silent.

  
_This could go either way now,_ he thinks, trying to reach his comlink without drawing attention.

  
But something tells him Hux will wait a bit more.

  
Hux repremending him and enjoying it feels like a forewarning, not the beginning of the coup.

  
_Rey_ , she should know what’s happening and for that he won’t need anything, but the Force.

  
He wishes he thought about talking her into leaving before today, but he suspects it would've been in vain, for the girl who defied Snoke wouldn’t flinch in front of Hux’s army.

  
“In lieu of the new events, we need to tighten security at the trial today,” Hux continues, pacing up and down behind him. “One never knows when the rebel scum might strike again and try to free their own. After all, we have two of their most prominent members. Without them, there’s only your ageing mother and the myth surrounding the Skywalkers that stands between us and their total annihilation.”

  
Kylo’s hand twitches towards his saber, under Hux’s watchful eyes.

  
The First Order officers hardly dare to breathe.

  
_So this is the way he's chosen,_ Kylo thinks _. Discrediting me on account of my heritage._

  
_“_ There is no need for any extra measures,” he says, his voice firm, resuming his place at the head of the table.

  
“Yes, there is. She's a threat and she would be hard to stop, if she chooses to attack. For something tells me the only person on par with her would simply lay his weapon down.“

  
“She’s my problem. That’s none of your business,” Kylo says not raising his voice.

  
“Everything is my business when it comes to protecting the First Order! I’d rather die than let it be destroyed from within.”

  
“That could easily be arranged” Kylo says, holding his gaze.

  
The air in the room is still and stale as Hux averts his eyes and sits down again.

 

  
*

  
When they bring Poe in front of the members of the Tribunal, the murmur in the hall dies instantly.

It’s the largest space on the ship, apart from the docking bay, and yet there’s not enough room for all interested in witnessing this unprecedented event.

  
The First Order officers, members of the judges’ entourage, and even stormtroopers, stand next to each other, craning their necks to see the participants of the trial that are all sitting around a row of tables arranged in a semi-circle.

  
Hux is already standing in the middle, waiting for everyone to settle down to start his tirade.

  
Kylo Ren is a dark presence in the shadow of a metal partition,  from where he has a good view of the seven judges.

His knights stand alert around him.

  
_Being taller than the crowd is a blessing_ , he thinks as he watches Poe take his place, flanked by the brightest _ray of light_ in the whole galaxy.

  
He must not let his eyes linger on her and yet, they inevitably dart to her on their own.

  
She seems focused, her face calm, neutral, until their eyes meet for the briefest of the moments and so many things pass over her face, all at once.

  
There’s tenderness there, there’s promise, too.

And what he was most afraid of seeing - _regret -_ is nowhere to be found.

  
That notion strengthens him.

  
Although he doesn’t dare to think about the future beyond today, as long as she’s looking at him like that, there will be hope.

  
As Hux reads a long list of crimes Poe’s accused of, Kylo stares at the far wall, feeling the Rey’s Force.

  
Anakin’s saber, _her_ saber, is clipped to his belt.

  
“Remember, half of it is mine,” she said earlier, half-serious, as she handed it to him.

  
“All of it is yours,” he said.

  
_Ours,_ he has to start practicing saying that word.

  
Hux’s words are a background buzz, until they are no more and there’s that familiar, deep silence between them, where only their breaths echo around them.

  
They don’t talk, they don’t even look at each other, but they’re together in it, now more than ever.

 

*

 

It takes Hux about one standard hour of incessant talking to present his case and list his allegations.

Poe looks bored and starts yawning pointedly.

  
“This sounds like a list of achievements. Don’t you think he looks a bit envious?” he whispers, leaning over to Rey.

  
The motley crew of judges is all eyes.

They murmur among themselves and then they ask him if he has anything to say in his defense.

  
He opens his mouth, but Rey puts her hand on his shoulder, and gets up to stand straight in front of them.

  
The room goes quiet as she just stands there, trying to meet everyone’s eyes.

  
“At first I entertained the idea of not recognizing the First Order authority over the Resistance members,” she says in a clear, sonorous voice, “but that would be letting them off the hook. Because with power comes responsibility. And that’s not what we have seen much of.

There is no order in the First Order today. There’s injustice, poverty, oppression.

But, luckily, the First Order is not on trial here, right?

  
Just my dear friend, General Poe Dameron.

And, I have to be honest with you. General Poe Dameron is guilty.”

  
A murmur travels through the room.

  
Kylo takes a step towards her, alert, his eyes darting to the appalled Hux.

  
“He’s guilty as charged. And so am I. But so is the First Order. In fact, they should be on trial today for causing it all.

You don’t treat the symptoms of a situation without addressing its cause.

So I have to say it again. There’s no order in the First Order rule and that’s the root of all the problems in our Galaxy.

They are very much a disorder.

We need a change. All of us. We need something new — a more just order for all the citizens of the Galaxy, not just the few chosen ones.

An order that wouldn’t be built on exploitation, or enforced using a strong military hand.

  
Call it what you want, it would be just a name if the foundation is sound.

  
So, to be worthy of governing this Galaxy, the First Order has to transform itself from within.

  
You are here today to give it credibility, you are here to judge if this order and its rule is a just system or just another fleetting establishment that causes more harm then it does good, like so many others that have plagued our Galaxy for thousands of years.

  
And as much as I hate to put it that way, I have to ask you to give the First Order a chance to right their wrongs.

Give the new Supreme Leader a chance to do something good for a change.

They gave you power to act in their name today. Seize it and do something good."

Her eyes meet Kylo's for a fraction of a second.

  
"I am here to ask you to let the past die, to leave it behind.

We don’t need more wars, we need forgiveness.

  
We have to draw a line somewhere. And I’m asking you to draw it here.

  
Grant amnesty to all prosecuted by the First Order. Give the First Order a chance to show us if they’re really up to building and not destroying.”

  
There’s only silence in the wake of her speech until an applause and spontaneous cheers break out.

  
Kylo looks at her with watery eyes and she sure is looking back at him — looking like she’s about to start crying, too, her cheeks flushed, her chest heaving.

  
It’s the moment when so many things in his personal universe click into their right places.

  
It’s the moment when he forgets about danger and his vigilance slacks off.

  
In his mind's eye Kylo sees it coming before it’s even happened.

  
Hux’s frustration, his powerlessness in front the effect of hope and faith in the future Rey has given all of them — in essence in front of the effect of Rey — that culminates in rage as he tries to make them all sit down and listen to what he has to say to counterbalance her arguments, followed by the realization that he’s lost the battle, that this might be the turning point after which nothing will ever be the same.

  
And yet Kylo fails to react preemptively, for his eyes are still on Rey, his chest swelling with pride.

  
Hux is swift to move, and even though Kylo is already running towards them, pushing the people out of his way with his long arms, followed by his knights, and even though his grandfather’s saber left his belt and flew towards Rey’s outstretched hand, he’s horrified to see Hux pointing his blaster at Rey’s temple and then he hears the sound of a blaster being fired and his world comes to an end.

 

_Except —_

 

 

 

Except it’s Hux that falls down on the ground, blood gurgling in his throat as he tries to get up, his arm extended towards Poe. His bulging eyes are turning dim as his fingers twitch around nothing in the empty air.

 

 

Kylo is already behind Rey, his saber hissing in his hand, his knights forming a half-circle around them, but the rest of the stormtroopers fall back as soon as Hux expires.

In the ensuing turmoil the judges and their entourage huddle together in one corner, but don’t leave the hall.

  
“There was always so much drama around this guy,” Poe says, throwing the blaster, he stole from his guard, on the ground.

  
Two stormtroopers seize him immediately, but Kylo gives them a sign to step away.

  
There’s a group of stormtroopers still clutching at their blasters, looking around for anyone to give them instructions.

  
_They could all be Finn,_ thinks Rey, extinguishing her saber, stepping towards them and relieving them of their weapons just in case.

  
She’s still eyeing suspiciously a group of the First Order officers that stand close to the exit, looking like they’re deliberating whether to go on with Hux’s plan or give up on it, for it already failed miserably.

  
For a moment she fights the urge to light her saber again and point it at them.

  
_Amnesty for all_ , she reminds herself, and takes a deep breath.

  
When the commotion calms down a bit, Kylo regains control by addressing the Galaxy over the holonet.

  
He talks at length about the need for cooperation and balance, about starting from zero, about amnesty, but the underlined warning in his words is palpable.

  
“This is how we deal with traitors on all sides,” he says as the camera zooms on Hux’s lifeless body, being carried away by the troopers.

  
The quiet peace that descends on the Galaxy smells like blood and smoke, but from all of it, a new hope is about to bloom.

 

 

  
*

 

  
“Go ahead, I’ll follow you,” she said to Pow as he climbed his X-wing with a short nod in Ben’s direction, the nod that remained unreciprocated.

She meant it then.

And here she is, lying in Ben’s arms again, on the narrow bed in the captain’s quarters on her ship.

  
That must also be his ship now, and that would technically make it _their_ ship.

  
The notion of sharing something so important with him is intoxicating.

  
It should be easier to leave him now, for it’s only temporary, until the changes take root and the Galaxy calms down once again.

Until the new Supreme leader figures out how to deal with the changes in the system.

Until she does the same back in the Resistance.

  
But it’s not.

It’s harder than ever now, when they’ve found each other and when being without him equals physical discomfort and feeling permanently incomplete.

 

  
*

 

  
_I wish you could stay,_ doesn’t even cover a fraction of what he feels at this moment, so he says nothing, just resolves to drinking her with his eyes one last time.

  
She knows, and she gives him a brave, cheeky smile.

  
“You could also come with me,” she says.

  
His lips quirk up.

  
She’s already sitting in the pilot seat and he’s leaning on the door of the cockpit, oblivious his tunic is turned inside out.

  
“The army needs restructuring. With Hux gone, I have no choice,” he says what they both already know.

  
“The Resistance could use some reorganizing, too.”

  
“I trust you to do it,” he says.

  
“You know, I can take whatever I want. And I want you. So how about I just close the door and take off. It’s my turn to kidnap you,” she says, smiling brightly.

  
He comes closer and leans down to her.

  
“It’s not kidnapping if I go willingly. It’s eloping,” he whispers into her slightly-parted lips.

  
His eyes remain serious, probing.

  
“I know just the place,” she says, just before she presses her lips on his, and for a moment, there are no words, or thoughts — just a wet mess of tongues and hands and sighs.

And his aching back for he’s bent unnaturally, but he wouldn’t change it for the world.

  
“I dreamt about an island,” he says when their lips finally part.

  
“I know,” she replies, still not letting him go. “And, guess what, I’m the only one who knows coordinates. BB-8 won’t squeak a word.”

  
He finally straightens up over her.

  
“At least we know where we’re going, We’ll figure it out how to get there.”

  
“You know I still don’t trust you. Or the First Order for that matter,” she says and he frowns lightly. “So I'll have to come back to check on you. Appoint myself an emissary or something to see if you’re doing your job."

  
She’s jabbing her index finger in his chest and he leans down to catch her lips again.

  
“I’ll have to subject you to my frequent control.”

  
“My quarters are always open to you,” he says with a smirk.

It's a new feeling for him - his heart is breaking and healing at the same moment, just by looking at her.

  
“Yeah, I bet you have better plumbing so I’ll have to take you up on that offer.”

Once again he watches her close the door on him, but oh, how everything is different now!

  
The blue light of the Millennium Falcon vanishes in the dark sky, but he stands there for a long time, looking after it, his mind blank, but for one word.

  
_Until._

Until they do what has to be done, until the balance in the Galaxy is restored.

  
Until she comes back again.

 

 


End file.
